


Double Feature

by di0brando



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Established Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Gender Exploration, Gender Identity, Genderqueer Character, M/M, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Richie Tozier Needs a Hug, the queer experience is watching rocky horror at a young age and not Realizing Things until later on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 12:10:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20874002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/di0brando/pseuds/di0brando
Summary: Eventually, Richie Tozier will learn that he feels like a catch in floor-length skirts and gaudy earrings. Until then, he's just going to have to go through the belated and stressful motions of eyeliner application.





	Double Feature

“Okay, Trashmouth, double or nothing,” Richie mutters to himself. The reflection in the bathroom mirror offers no pity.

Nothing about this should feel like a death sentence—and it doesn’t feel that way, not really—but he finds that he’s nervous. His hands are jittery, even though this isn’t a performance. There’s no audience, and there are no cameras present. He doesn’t have anything to prove to the medicine cabinet. If this experiment sucks and he hates it, he can throw the eyeliner in the garbage and call it a day.

Honestly, Richie still isn’t sure where to start, but he definitely doesn’t want to get in over his head. His shopping bag has fluttered to the floor, already forgotten; Richie’s new makeup is cluttered on the counter, not far from Eddie’s comb. Primer, foundation, eyeliner, a cheap set of brushes, and a tube of highlighter—just like the online drag artists recommended, even if he didn’t want to shell out the money for their fancy brands.

Richie stood in the cosmetics section at the store for far too long, fretting over how poignant the lighting was. If some fan happened to recognize him, he would have had to stumble over some ‘picking up lipstick for the girlfriend, ha-ha’ bullshit, and it would have left a bad taste in his mouth. He hasn’t had a girlfriend in years, and he’s never going to have one again. Eddie has filled every single crevice in Richie’s (arguably) bitter, old demeanor, and Richie would starve without him. The heterosexual excuses have to hit the highway, but he doesn’t want to start wearing fucking heels until after he outs himself on camera. People don’t need to _know_ everything.

If he’s being honest, Richie wanted to take every tube of lipstick and every palette of eye shadow off the displays and throw them into his shopping basket, because he admittedly liked all of the colors. But he couldn’t justify spending hundreds of dollars on items he may not even have the guts to use. He told himself to start small—if some glitter doesn’t cut it, then he’ll have proven that this was just a pipe dream.

Richie gnaws at the inside of his cheek and twists the cap off of his foundation. He’s starting to wonder if he should go play with the nail polish instead. Something about that seems less forbidden. Christ, not that anything is _forbidden_ in their _apartment_. Eddie wouldn’t give him shit about this, even if there was a time where Richie wouldn’t have been able to say the same.

But things are different now. Richie has exhausted himself—wasted so much fucking time and labor on pleasing the masses just so people don’t look at him too critically. It never sat but so well with him, but after Derry, self-reflection has made Richie feel ill. His stand-up (read; the material that others wrote _for_ him) allowed for too much wiggle room with a flimsy sense of neutrality. It allowed him to become just like the useless Derry denizens that he and the Losers always promised they’d never turn into. An edgy mouthpiece with no horse in any race, just barely capable of shoving all of his PTSD and ADHD symptoms in a box at the back of a grossly not-subtle closet.

But again, things are different now. Which is why Richie emailed his manager with an ultimatum; _I write my own material, or Netflix can go dig up some Chevy Chase __wannabe__ from the bottom of a barrel. _

As soon as he hit ‘send,’ he ran to the bathroom to vomit. It was a risk worth way too much money, especially since he _likes_ being able to afford ritzy vacations with the Losers Club, but his friends’ text messages made him feel smart for trying to make some changes despite the fear.

‘You’re funnier when you’re authentic, Rich. No one should take that from you,’ said Ben.

‘We’re here for you, sweetie. It won’t be the end; you’ll always have a club to perform in,’ said Beverly.

‘We’ve all been through so much. None of us want to go back to how we were before we remembered,’ said Bill.

That one really stuck with Richie. Everything in his life is new, and refreshing, and _good_. He has friends where before there were none. He has Eddie where before all he had was a raw and sad ache. And now, he’s having an overdue identity crisis, at least fifteen years too late.

Thankfully, Richie’s contracts have been approved, and his manager wasn’t as pissed as he anticipated.

He has the green light. He can reinvent himself with his new special, clean slate, no matter what any of his fans may think of it.

Richie smears the foundation over his cheeks and when he leans back and blinks at the mirror, he laughs nervously, almost secretive. He hasn’t told Eddie about this, though he did bring it up in a roundabout way two weeks ago.

“Eddie Izzard is pretty funny,” Richie had commented out of the blue. He and Eddie were sitting on the couch with their legs tangled together; Eddie was watching one of his reality shows and Richie was staring intently at his phone. Rather, staring intently at pictures of Izzard with beautiful nails. Eddie looked up at that.

“I haven’t watched much of her old stand-up. I think the British humor goes over my head sometimes,” Eddie chuckled.

“Maybe if I wear eyeliner for a show, some of that talent will rub off on me,” Richie said, though he forgot to frame it as a joke.

“You’re plenty talented,” said Eddie, “but the eyeliner couldn’t hurt, right?”

So here Richie is, hoping the eyeliner doesn’t hurt while Eddie is at some insurance meeting. He buffs out the foundation with a brush, just like YouTube told him to. He looks different already. It covers the gray undertone of his shaven jaw, along with the perpetual, tired purple under his eyes. Richie doesn’t want to speak too soon, but he thinks he _likes_ it. At the very least, it’s makes him look a little younger.

The sudden sound of the front door opening is so jarring that Richie feels like his eardrums are going to burst. He didn’t think Eddie would be home for another hour, and he didn’t buy any makeup wipes. Richie swallows past the knot in his throat and stifles the instinctive panic. It’s Eddie—it’s just Eddie. What’s he going to do? At worst he’s just going to fuss at him about the skin issues that come along with dirty makeup brushes. Christ, Derry fucked him up beyond repair.

“Rich, the meeting got cut short!” Eddie calls from the living area. Richie can hear him taking his shoes off and setting his laptop bag on the table. Richie takes a deep breath and braces himself as Eddie appears in the bathroom doorway.

“I texted you, but—woah, you weren’t kidding about the Eddie Izzard thing?” Eddie asks, his eyes wide with surprise as his hand rests on the door frame.

“I, hm, I guess not,” Richie, for once, is at a loss with no quick wit ready to slap a band-aid on the situation. He doesn’t realize that he’s somewhat short of breath until Eddie’s easing him down to sit on the edge of the bathtub.

“Hey, Richie, you’re alright. It sucks, Rich, I know it does,” Eddie consoles as Richie tries to release the tight, tight tension in his jaw. It’s fucking magic, really—that Eddie just knows what the problem in Richie’s gut is. “I still panic when I can’t find the pills for shit that I’m not even really allergic to.”

Yeah, Eddie would know all about Derry sticking to your ribs the same way gum sticks to the bottom of your boot. Richie eases him down from panic attacks every now and again. Panic attacks that wouldn’t exist if not for the overbearing, cutthroat paranoia of his mom-wife. It just happens. Richie’s sure that Mike still wakes up some nights in a cold sweat because he thinks he’s still in Derry. He knows that Bill is finally seeing a therapist because of a little brother that he hasn’t seen in three decades. He’s sure that it took Bev a while to not flinch whenever Ben startled her.

So Richie’s little badge of Derry honor comes in the form of anxiety about people _knowing_. Even if the only person here to eye him is his Eddie. Even if he plans on letting the _world_ know once he finishes his new script. He just has to suck it up and keep being brave like Eds.

“It’s a stupid fucking thing to freak out over,” Richie chuckles briefly, one shoulder jerking, “It’s not like I’m going to wear any of it on camera.” Richie’s eyes close when he feels Eddie’s hand thread back through his curls.

“No dumber than when we screamed at that clown on the boardwalk last Summer,” Eddie grins crookedly, his scar twisting on his cheek.

“Dude was just trying to make a living,” Richie starts to laugh, and the worry dissipates. Then, there’s a beat in which Eddie blinks at the tube of eyeliner sitting by the sink.

“Richard, you can’t see a goddamn thing, I don’t know how you expected to put this on,” Eddie says, grabbing the stick. “Let me do it.”

“Have _you_ ever used eyeliner?” Richie asks doubtfully, letting Eddie remove his clunky glasses for him.

“No, but I’m sure it won’t look like a blind lemur tried to draw on your face with a Sharpie—hold still, Jesus, I haven’t even touched you yet.”

Richie tries to tame his grin and keep his eyes closed. He startles minutely when he feels the wet felt tip touch his eyelid for the first time. Mostly, he just feels his heart threatening to beat out of his chest as he listens to Eddie’s quiet and steady breathing.

“You wouldn’t have to wear any for a recording,” Eddie muses out loud. Richie raises his eyebrows. “I think you could book a couple gigs at gay bars without it being a contract issue; you could experiment on a smaller scale.” Richie scoffs, albeit not bitterly.

“Yeah, except I’d have blurry pictures of me in heels on Instagram.”

“You and everyone else,” Eddie deadpans, to which Richie barks out a laugh. “The _point_ that I’m trying to _make_ is that your comedy is there. Everything else is just icing. People are going to talk about what you look like no matter what, Rich. Whether you end up on stage in a skirt or if you wear the same, tacky button-ups for the rest of your life.”

“Leave my shirts out of this,” Richie grumbles just as Eddie pulls away. He slowly opens his eyes and squints at the blurry bathroom before putting his glasses back on. He then stands up and looks in the mirror.

“Jesus, my fucking frames hide it half the time,” Richie frowns, shoving his glasses up his bridge as far as they will go. Eddie appears in the reflection as well; Richie feels him settling both hands on his back and rubbing gently at the fabric of his not-tacky shirt.

“We could get you a pair with thinner frames to wear whenever you use the eye stuff,” Eddie placates, ever the self-proclaimed voice of reason. “But how does it feel?” Eddie asks with a softer tone.

Richie takes a moment to think about it, angling his face left and right. It’s bare bones makeup, even he knows that. It’s going to take him a while to learn how to get his brushes to do what they need to. But even with just the foundation, he looks and feels a bit softer—he’s gone from middle-aged sap with visible trauma and a caffeine addiction to a mediocre vlogger that won’t stop acting like nobody’s seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

“Am I handsome, Spaghetti?” Richie asks, smirking at Eddie’s reflection. Eddie maintains eye contact and kisses his shoulder. Richie wishes he could feel it through the cotton.

“You are. But you’re also deflecting.”

“Feels like I should’ve been doing _this_ in my twenties instead of watching straight men play shitty rounds of darts every Saturday night,” Richie sighs, “I do like it. I think, uh, I think I wanna do more.” Eddie nods against his arm.

“No problem,” says Eddie, “Let me get out of this suit and throw something in the oven. Then we can look at some videos, if you want. Maybe see if there’s a specific look you’re aiming for,” Eddie is already meandering out of the bathroom, but Richie stops him by grabbing his hand. Eddie turns and looks at him.

“Eddie,” Richie says, working his jaw with unspoken words. Thank you. Thank you for this. Thank you for not even questioning it. Thank you for picking up the slack and humoring whatever the hell it is I decide to do. “I'm...”

Eddie smiles, fond and exasperated before leaning up on his toes to plant a kiss on Richie’s mouth. Richie sighs and returns the grin right before Eddie’s skeptical eyes cut to the sink.

“Don’t forget to clean your brushes. You’ll get conjunctivitis.”

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, sweet, my THIRD sappy Reddie oneshot. Soon, I'm gonna hit y'all with angst or smut and THEN who will be laughing??
> 
> Honorable mention goes to Bianca del Rio, who I thought Richie might like. Unfortunately, she didn't make it into the fic bc I didn't want to get too saturated with references. Three cheers for trying to cram literally all of your queer interests into all of your content.
> 
> Also richie and eddie say genderqueer rights. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!! Please leave kudos if you enjoyed it, and comments, as usual, make my world go round, so pls leave me some love <3 ty ty


End file.
